1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed generally to a heat regulation device and more specifically to a heat regulation device for use with cooking systems, such as a deep fat fryer, for regulating the temperature of a cold zone of the fryer so as to eliminate the potential boiling of a cooking substance within the fryer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, many types of large capacity pressurized deep fat fryer cookers (referred herein as deep fat fryers, cooking devices, cookers, etc.) have been devised for cooking products in a heated and/or pressurized environment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,033,368, issued to Brewer and commonly assigned to the present assignee, discloses a large capacity gas fired pressure cooker heated by a pair of radiant burner units utilizing a gas/air mixture. Similarly, such a cooking device has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,038, issued to Burkett et al. and also commonly assigned to the present assignee, which utilizes electric heating devices.
Typically, such cooking devices comprise a cooking vessel, which may be filled with a type of cooking substance (e.g., oil or shortening), and heating devices surrounding or immersed in the vessel for heating the cooking oil. Products to be cooked are placed in the vessel, either directly or possibly contained within a wire basket, and are cooked for a desired length of time. A process controller coupled to the cooking device may be present for controlling the operation of the heating devices according to a predetermined protocol, or the heating devices may be controlled by an electro-mechanical device. Also, a lid which may be sealed to the top of the device may be utilized in order to cook the products both heat and pressure.
While such cooking devices described above, and further described in the above U.S. patents and in the prior art, provide for a relatively effective cooking environment, a problem exists with these devices. Specifically, the cooking substance (e.g. shortening) used in these cooking devices has the potential to boil over the sides of the cooking vessel at certain times. It has been discovered that this problem is directly linked to the amount of moisture contained within the "cracklings" found within the colder zones of the cooking substance usually found at the bottom of the vessel.
Generally, "cracklings" are pieces of breading, skin or other items which have dropped off of a food item being cooked in the fryer. For example, if fried chicken pieces are being cooked within the vessel, some of the breading applied before cooking the chicken may break away from the chicken and drift to the lower zone of the vessel. Because moisture may be found within the cracklings, such moisture may cause the cooking substance to boil over if the cracklings become mixed with the hot oil in the upper zone of the vessel.
Therefore, the present invention is directed to a device and method for preventing such boiling over to take place by regulating the temperature found within the cold zone of a fryer. This and other aspects of the present invention will be described in further detail below.